Sunday, September 13, 2015

Oahu Diving 06/09/2015

It had been a long time since we had done any warm water diving, and Heather arranged for us to do some with Dive Oahu while we were in Hawaii. I had never been to Hawaii, and it was an amazing time. We had a lot planned, with diving and snorkeling just a portion.

We got picked up from the Hotel by Tiffany in one of the Dive Oahu vans. As it always seemed with diving, it was early! We hoped that going out early in the day would pay off. There had been some hurricane activity, with Hurricane Jimena to the north, and the surf was definitely up. We also hoped that this wouldn't affect the diving too much!

When we got to the dock, we realized it was just a few minutes away and we could have just walked. At the dock, we met the rest of the crew: Captain Matt and Brian, as well as the rest of the people on the boat. It was a small group, only six of us. A picture of our boat, the Ocean Spirit.


In the waters just by the dock was a school of Moorish Idols, and a zebra moray. I couldn't believe that we were seeing things right in the marina!

Here was a picture of Tiffany and Brian (in the back) talking about our first dive site, the Sea Tiger. The wreck had quite a history.


The day was perfect, as you could see by this picture of our trip out of the marina.


And here was a picture of Captain Matt, taking us out on this perfect day.


The Sea Tiger wreck did not disappoint. We got some pretty neat pictures on the descent.



It was a deep dive at 100 feet and we saw more Moorish Idols, moray eels, white tipped reef sharks and just an incredible array of life. At the beginning of the dive, Heather came over to me and showed me her camera housing. It was sloshing water, and clearly flooded. The o-ring must have not been seated properly, but getting a waterproof camera inside a housing paid off! After the dive, it was fine.

This was a pretty good picture of one of a white tipped reef sharks cruising by. It was at about 130 feet, and we were at about 100.


And here was a snap of the bow of the Sea Tiger.


There was quite a lot of surge and current on the dive, much more than I was used to. It wasn't bad, and made the dive fun and challenging. It was apparent that going out early had paid off, as we watched more and more boats coming out behind us. The dive site was only about 10 minutes from the harbor.

We had a short surface interval, but our next dive site was very shallow with a depth of 40 feet. Tiffany and the crew were keen to get us to Horseshoe Reef ahead of the other boats in order to check out the turtles before they got too overwhelmed with divers. It paid off.

This was a snap of the reef itself. It was not as vibrant as I might have expected, but pretty good considering all the traffic it got and its close proximity to Waikiki. It was literally just 10 minutes out.


Heather got a picture of me checking out the reef.


We both brought Sola dive lights along, but I kept forgetting to use it to illuminate things when I was using my GoPro. I was used to my HID light, which just washed things out, so I was in the habit of pointing my light away.

This was a picture on the way to the turtles. There was a ledge under-which they slept quite often.


The surge here was even more pronounced. It was nearly impossible to fin against it, so it was much more efficient to not fight it, and fin ahead on the surge, almost like a drift dive with a push. The sand on the bottom stirred up in what reminded me of underwater snow-storms. It was quite cool, even though it brought the visibility down.

Tiffany got us over to the turtle area, and from that point, it was just magical. There were about five of them. Patient watching paid off, and I was lucky enough to have several encounters with them. It also gave an opportunity for us to use the picture-enhancing software Vivid-Pix, which helped out quite a bit on the clarity of some of the photos.




This was probably the best shot, with one turtle swimming right past my camera!


Too soon, it was time to ascend and pack up. I couldn't not include my signature self-portrait from turning off my GoPro!


It was a great morning of diving, all thanks to Brian Benton and his crew at Dive Oahu! Here was the video that came out of the day. It turned out great! Enjoy!


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